Inquiry
by gelfling
Summary: Experimental KakaGaa fic, the second of it’s kind. After wondering what the heck life and love was all about, and getting tired of killing, Gaara turns to the most unlikely teacher who’s not too thrilled either. Gaara POV.
1. Wake Up

Wake Up

By gelfling

gelfling8604@yahoo.com

***

LSD melts your mind, not in your hand. 

Does this have to do with the dragon in your pants?

I'm going to be a lobster when I grow up.

***

There's the smell of sand.  It's an awful comforting smell, and he could never get away from it even if he drowned his head in the icy ocean and stopped breathing.  It's always there in his ears, in the corner of his eyes, matted through his hair like flies.  

It won't go away and he can't run fast enough; there's nowhere that will safeguard him from the things that he carries in his head.  He understands _that_ with a grudging rejection; he doesn't deny it, but he doesn't accept it.  He's not the kind to accept anything he doesn't want.  Despite everything he appears to be and everything he really _is_, he is at heart a fighter.  Not a ninja, not a demon, barely human, but surely a fighter.

His family fears him; that's fine.  His siblings aren't stupid enough to try and kill him, and have risked their lives to protect him.  This doesn't guarantee their safety from the darkness in his head, because not even _he_ can control it, can make it stop hurting _himself_, but he won't allow anything else to hurt them.  They belong to him; he's possessive about things like that, yet aloof.  He won't touch them, and they won't touch him.  But nothing hurts them.  They stay away from him.  Fine.  Whatever.  It's…complicated.

He thought he was alone.  

And…he's _right_, but he's also wrong.  He's right and wrong all the time, more often than he wants to think about.  He's wrong to kill, but right to follow his nature at the same time.  He's wrong to be alive, but right to defy the greed that created him in a lab like a three-headed snake.  He's wrong to dream, but right to try for something better.  He doesn't know.  It's so damn confusing, and he just doesn't _know_.  

He tried to stop caring about what was wrong and what was right to do, tried to rely on bare instinct, and that was good but it wasn't enough.  He was complete, but he was in Hell.  He was complete in Hell, and that wasn't a place he wanted to be complete _in_.  Complete in and _incomplete_.  It wasn't what he wanted.  It was what he was.  He wasn't what he wanted to be.  He isn't what he wants.

He doesn't know.

He is alone.  He _is_ alone, but Nature always makes two.

It's like phoenixes; legend wrote only one egg per nest, and so the creature was reborn from the ashes of its corpse.  But birds always had more than one egg because Nature was far too cruel to take chances.  Nature always made two, because though the phoenix was the symbol of hope and death and rebirth, first and foremost it was a _bird_, and birds needed to survive.  So the phoenix had two eggs, regardless of what legend wrote…or, at least, that's what the gray guy said when he caught him outside the apartment bedroom.

He is alone.  But he is alone with another.  He is still alone.

He doesn't understand.  He doesn't understand so _much_.

Fox and badger are supposed to fight, supposed to be locked in eternal rivalry, but someone beat him there first.  He isn't the fox's rival; someone else beat him to it, and absolutely nothing he did now could possibly change that.  Not even if he killed Sasuke; not even that.

So he just watches.  It's okay, only it isn't.  

They fight and yell, and then they get tired.  It's a sort of ritual.  Sometimes they stomp on toes a little _too_ hard, and one of them gets banished to the couch for the night, no hanky panky for him that night.  Generally, it's Naruto.  This confuses him, because Naruto's stronger than Sasuke, but he's still not in control of what the other does.  He doesn't have to do _anything_ Sasuke says, because Sasuke doesn't have the power to make him do _anything_.  But Naruto does anyway.  Why?  Gaara doesn't understand.

Maybe that's the price demons paid for living with humans: agreeing to whatever they said.  Gaara had done that--they had always asked that he kill someone or something, and that had never been a problem for him.  That hadn't bothered him; he enjoyed it.  As the Hokage's son, possible heir to the Hidden Sand legacy with the power of a demon backing him, he followed orders because they had always asked him to kill.  Seemed all he was good for.  That had been fun.

It bored him now.  He tired of it.  

They never asked that of Naruto; make a point not to give him assassination missions.  The blonde was capable of it; they don't do it on purpose.  Strange.  Or, it was strange to him.  Strange that they'd be treated so differently even though they were too much alike to be normal.

Toes haven't been stepped on tonight.  Sasuke cradled Naruto from behind, talking into his ear so closely that his lips brushed the skin.  The blonde grinned enticingly, leaning back and murmuring something down low that made the darker smirk and nuzzle his neck.  Naruto closed his eyes.  

Gaara had stopped trying to listen to their conversations a while back; he heard the words perfectly, but didn't understand what they meant.  They insulted each other, but there was no hatred in their voices.  There was no malice in the retorts, no demands in the demands.  He didn't understand what they meant; it was like they were talking in code that meant something to only them and to no one else.  Still, he watched.  

He's been watching a while now, trying to figure out what it all meant, because it meant _something_, obviously, because Naruto's skin has finally managed to scar.

He wears the same small bite mark Sasuke wears on his shoulder, and it scars him. Intellectually Gaara knows it should have freed the fox or tainted the human soul.  It should've done something.

Naruto's worn the mark for five months now--he continues with the missions, death matches, the village's distrust, and constant bickering of Sasuke.  In all that time, from the moment it was placed on him, the bite-mark has never activated.  Gaara would know it if it had; the fox's and blonde's combined energy signature would have been different.  But it isn't.  It isn't on.  It doesn't work.  

Naruto got the damn thing saving Sasuke's life; Gaara's hazy on the details.  They're not important.  What's important is _why_ he got it.  That's the part Gaara doesn't understand; that's the thing he wants to know.

He asked Temari what it meant when people went inside the other.  She paled, blushed, and finally said it was called making love.  Kankuro said it was called having sex.  Love or sex…he wasn't sure if they were the same thing or not.

Watching the two shinobi undress, he supposed it could be both.  Perhaps.  It was a stretch, but it was a stretch that could happen.  Maybe it was—he's pretty sure one of them is happening.  He doesn't know enough to argue yet.  He's watched them put one inside the other before, nothing like animals but not playing either.  They fall asleep next to each other, curled up and holding tight.  

He can smell their fear.  He can see their smile and smirk.  He can recognize desire and carnal urges, the obscene need to devour a living breathing heart-beating creature.  But…

They don't hurt one another, only sometimes they do.  Only they don't mean to, except when they do.  Except they don't actually _eat_ each other, but they bite and suck and drink down what they can.  But they don't _try_ to bleed the other, only sometimes they do.  

He doesn't understand it, not the act or the reasoning behind it.  He's hunted and eaten human and animal flesh when the moon was full and high, demon blood running through his veins and calling for the fluid and flesh of something alive.  He's crunched jackal bones with his teeth, and later vomited up jewelry carelessly swallowed.  

What Naruto and Sasuke do in bed is different from what Gaara does under the full moon with his victim.

He doesn't understand it.  There's so much he doesn't understand.

It's just… _why_???  

Was this what love was?  Was that what he was looking for, a body to put himself in??  Was that _It_?!

What the hell _was it all about!?!_  

…he didn't know.  It was so damn confusing; he didn't understand it at all.  

His body reacts though…when he watches them, watches Naruto's bronze neck arch and mouth beg brokenly in groans and sobs helpless as a beached fish, hands combing through Sasuke's dark hair and pushing his head down just a _little_ bit more.  Their hands stray everywhere, touching in between their legs and inside their bodies, into their mouths and through their hair, over their backs and just _everywhere_.  They do things to each _other_ with the lights _on_ that Gaara wouldn't _dream_ of doing to _himself_ in a very secure dark private room.  He hasn't even _thought_ of having someone _else_ do those things to him.

It was…different.  It was very different from what he expected.  It was very different from what he does when the moon is high and full.  It excited him, made him _feel_ when he watched them do things to each other, and confused him.  

None of that stopped him from coming to watch them.  Not even the painful 'left out' feeling that hits him afterwards, always.  When his isolation is contrasted and epitomized right before his unwilling eyes.  When his loneliness is ever greater.  When he knows how very different he is from everyone else.

It hurts.  It hurts a lot.  But that doesn't stop him from coming to haunt them.

He needs to know.  They _knew_, but that wasn't enough.  He needed to know too.  They knew, so if he watched and learned long enough, eventually he would understand it all.  Eventually.  It was possible; he hadn't given up hope on that yet.  He'd do it.  He'd figure it all out.

Naruto laughed in his throat and kissed the top of Sasuke's nose.  They curled together like wolves, tangled up and comfortable warm still making noises deep in their chests and murmuring to each other.

He had watched carefully, ignoring the flush and crawling on his skin and rhythmic throbbing between his own legs.  Every shift the fabric made against his skin felt like a small bomb has gone off inside his flesh, the slight twitch of the breeze against his forehead felt like a splash of ice-cold water.  Small jolts of sensation prick the inside of his hands like acupuncture needles, demanding his attention right _then_!  He had watched every movement, noted the slight reaction and twitch to every movement, read the motive behind the body language in each and the reaction in the other.

It had started out innocently enough.  He needed to know and they knew so if he _watched_ then he figured he would know.  He still needed to know.  He needed to know.  But…he's already figured out that if he hadn't figured it out yet, he probably wasn't going to figure it out for a while. There were two souls in his heart, two minds in his head, and he never slept so _he_ could keep control of the soul and mind.  This only confuses him more.

It's very warm, and his eyes are wide.

…Gaara doesn't get it at _all_.  

"Cold showers work wonders on those problems.  Bathhouses should still be open."

"Shut up."

Sing song voice.  "Someone's gotta a boner, someone's gotta a boner—"

"Shut up!"

"They're gonna hear you."

Gaara glared at the individual adjacent him.  He had already _explained_ that he had no intention of maiming _anything_, and if _did_ then he'd _do_ it but some guardians didn't know how to take no for an answer.  He wasn't going to hurt them; there was no reason for him to do that.  He wanted his privacy, but he couldn't control when he did and didn't come, because it was Naruto and Sasuke who decided when they were going to do anything.  It was…irritating.  It was _severely_ irritating.  He turned his head away, and tried to figure out the reasoning behind what he had just seen.  

He didn't _really_ want to kill everyone in the world anymore, because of what Naruto had said and done 3 years ago and the things he had learned in that time since, but sometimes it was _really_ tempting.  So tempting just to grab that mocking smile he can't see but can hear word-perfect and just tear it off, throw it on the ground and just forget the whole fucking thing because it confused the hell out of him more than anything else.  It would be so _easy_ just to turn his back on all of it, to say, "The hell with it," to all and everything and everyone because none of it made sense to him at all.  It was a waste of time; it was a waste of _his_ time. 

"It's kinda sick watching them, don't you think?  Wonder what they'd do if they knew they had an audience…"

"Fuck off," Gaara got up and left.  

He hated people.  He hated _all_ people.  It was barely worth his trouble.  

Except when it wasn't, of course.

***

A/N: This is an experimental piece, meant to continue on in TWO more chapters, no more, no less, because I need to learn to control my big mouth!  I have a big mouth!  I emphasize experimental; I'm trying to get a grip on Kakashi's character, it's so very elusive.    


	2. Something Like That

Something Like That 

By gelfling

gelfling8604@yahoo.com

***

LSD melts your mind, not in your hand. 

Does this have to do with the dragon in your pants?

I'm going to be a lobster when I grow up.

***

How many people made promises they knew they couldn't keep?  
  
_I love you.  I'll always stay with you.  Nothing will harm you while I'm here.  I'll make everything all right._

How many promises did people make that they kept?  How many did they break?  How many did they _want_ to break, deep down inside.  How could one tell?  Did anything ever make sense?  

Nothing ever stayed the same; it was always changing, people dying and going away and stealing little parts of the left-behind soul, people living and coming in and giving little parts of their soul to the waiting.  It was always like that, always changing and never changing.  It was the wind and water, shifting and swirling but always water and wind no matter what the season or time was.  It was always the same.  It was always changing.

Kakashi wasn't really a people person.  He worked well in groups, could mingle and tease and insinuate himself into any conversation usually with some hidden innuendo or acting like a lost idiot in desperate need of the bathroom, but he wasn't _really_ a people person, and there was a good reason behind that.

Kakashi _understood_ people.  

He understood what drove them, what made them tick and how to make them angry and how to make them relaxed; that skill—understanding—truly was one of his most useful assets as a shinobi.  Any drunken idiot with a knife could kill, and after a couple years training the arts of ninjutsu could be manipulated by the not-so-gifted—those things didn't make a shinobi unique.  Useful, but not unique, and usefulness had its limits.

The hard thing about being unique was making sure you _weren't_ unique where it showed.  You were secretly unique except when you weren't to the people who needed to know.  But you couldn't be unique all the time; it ticked people off, and scared them.  That created unnecessary complications.  Complications = = Bad!

So he _couldn't_ tell Sakura that Sasuke was not perfect, partly because she wouldn't believe him and _mostly_ because it would hurt her too much, and that would be bad for her and bad for the team and bad for him.  Badness all around like flies at an all-night takeout diner.  

Her illusions, foolish as they were, helped hold the team together.  The rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke that would grow with time and passion into something that _could_ be twisted and dark that would tear wounds through them that would never heal or _could_ be warm and elastic, but still capable of destroying the team.  They hurt each other; they hurt Sakura _hard_ who never hurt them as much as they hurt her and it just…

He knew how to fix it.  He'd have to probably yell and knock some heads together, tell them to stop being so self-absorbed and selfish, blind to everyone else except themselves and actually start _doing_ it, that thing that would hold the team together and make them indestructible, unbeatable and—

It was so _irritating_.

--and _then_ they would achieve their individual goals through teamwork.  They were capable of it, it was right at their fingertips when they weren't thinking with their egos and desires, but actually thinking _rationally_ and…

Stop.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Good.  All right!

He couldn't force them.  He knew that.  It was just so…nerve wrecking to watch them blunder and dance on the edge of the knife.  He had learned not to get nervous about what people did a while ago, since he couldn't control their lives and they always managed to sew things back up together, except the times when they didn't and usually died or something stupid like that.  Adult fiction was so much more entertaining than watching kids fall flat on their faces.  Still…

It would be so _easy_ to tell Sasuke that Naruto would never hurt him, _could_ never hurt him, no matter what he did or how he felt.  Naruto was clumsy, but not cruel.  It would be easy to tell Sakura that Sasuke actually _did_ care about her the way she did about him, but she didn't love him romantically at all _anyway_; she liked the _idea_, but she wasn't in love with him.  It would easy, then messy, but it would make things _smooth_.

--At times like that, Kakashi would stretch, watch to see who was looking, and then wander off somewhere to take a quiet nap, tranquility filling his chest cavity idly while he practiced one of his many…'hobbies'-- 

And artificial.  A lie.  Fake.  It would unravel, this thing that held them together as a team if he pointed out the strands, so it was better just to trust them that they would make it out okay and not make any promises.  No more promises.  Promises were evil things.  He always broke the ones he made.

So…Kakashi wasn't a people person.  It was hard to have that knowledge and not make use of it, so he avoided the whole mess altogether when he could.  

He had been quietly relieved when Naruto managed to break down the walls isolating and driving Sasuke slowly insane with his locked-in ghosts and suicidal hatred and forcibly _shoved_ himself into the other boy's life whether he had wanted it or not; for the better.  But Kakashi had seen it coming, so it didn't surprise him though it could have easily gone the other way, could have shattered them both.  _Easily_.

It didn't though, and the team was a little bit stronger and a little bit weaker because of the sudden shift in relationships.  Sakura was the one now isolated instead of Sasuke, with walls that couldn't be smashed down a hammer but had to be taken down with a delicacy that neither Naruto nor Sasuke possessed.  Kakashi realized he might have to see to her personally…if she would allow her teacher treating her like a friend.  She might not; he might be able to steer someone else better suited for the job in her direction like Ino or Lee, perhaps even Iruka-sensei, but that would be tricky.  It would take _work_.  It was something to muse on, certainly.

But right now, even though Sakura's isolation in the team was a growing problem, it wasn't murderous.  The creature that has taken to stalking and observing his two other students _was_.  Sure, he hadn't killed anyone _yet_, but that didn't mean anything.  Hell, Kakashi had a bed, but that didn't mean he was _in_ it every night.  …Sometimes he was in someone else's.  

He had hurt the village pretty bad previously, but this wasn't about a grudge—grudges took up too much energy, and Kakashi always lost interest halfway through--it just wasn't safe to leave him to his own devices.  

Kakashi had considered physically throwing him out of the village, and discredited the idea immediately.  He had observed him silently before realizing that he was still being detected, and deliberately stopped trying, making a point to make his presence known at sometime.  

Kakashi understood this one too.

He was hungry and lost.  He had always _been_ lost, but he had been lost with a purpose, lost with a destination in mind.  There had been something for him to do, a point for him to make, but now because of what Naruto went ahead and said and did and shattered down his wall with the same mallet he had shattered Sasuke's, he was now lost without a purpose.  He didn't have a destination anymore, didn't have a purpose anymore except to find out _how_ someone became un-alone.  How someone became _happy_ (whatever the heck _that_ was—and Kakashi rolled his eye).  How someone became loved.  He was more unstable _now_ than he was then—he just wasn't as homicidal, which was a small improvement.  

It's a vague destination and not the best kind to have, but it was what he had and what he wanted so he went after it, starting with the first obvious place which was Naruto's apartment and, more specifically, Naruto's bedroom, watching what went on inside with a spying jutsu Kakashi had already copied.  

He had grinned the first time he saw it.

It was amusing and ironic, like the day he found an illustration for sexual education in his adult fiction novels right next to an advertisement to buy more cucumbers.  

The terror of darkness and blood and hate having the same perverted interest as himself was too much of a temptation for him to pass by unteased.  But…he didn't get a perverted high out of voyeurism—he was actually there for a point.  It was a stupid place to learn that point, to discover one's place in the world and how one started to _belong_ to something and how one was loved, but it was a place to start, so he did.  It didn't make it any less comical.

Kakashi already offered him the gay edition of Icha Icha Paradise.  He doubted he'd ever get the issue back, and kept on making the point to get it the next morning and kept on forgetting all about it.  He'd get it back eventually when he wanted it enough, right now it was going to a _good cause_, and that was enough to make him satisfied for the moment.

"Geez, don't you have somewhere you have to _be_?"

"Your kind sleep."

"_My_ kind wants my book back—_without_ drool, please.  Sheesh, I have to admit this was fun in the beginning, but now it's just boring."

"Go away."

"Nah, it's bad enough I have to be freezing at home _and_ here—at least at home I get to see more than just a little leg.  I get the full enchilada…how can this interest you for this long?  It's so _boring_ now…"

"They're your students."

"Yeah, they sure do learn quickly, don't they?  I'm so proud of them, and I only had to lend Naruto-kun a couple books and a few tips, and _look_ where he took off with them.  Added his own personal touches too.  I'm proud of that boy.  And anyway, I'm not the one getting off the show."

"Go away."

"I'd tell _you_ to go climb a tree, but since we're already in one…well, that'd be kinda silly, wouldn't it?  Awwwweeee…someone's _blushing_; don't you just look like the sweetest little—Ow!"

"Fuck off."

"Well that was nice!  That was my hand you know!"

"I was aiming for your head."

"You're not very good at physical combat, are you?  Far too used to your weapon…  …see you later kid.  You don't have to say good-bye or anything, since your jaw might break from the strain.  I'd hate to be responsible…sort of.  My head, eh?  Huh…funny kid.  Stupid kid.  Funny, stupid kid."

***

A/N: This is an experimental piece, meant to continue on in TWO more chapters, no more, no less, because I need to learn to control my big mouth!  I have a big mouth!  I emphasize experimental; I'm trying to get a grip on Kakashi's character, it's so very elusive.    


	3. Temptation

Temptation  
  
By gelfling  
  
gelfling8604yahoo.com  
  
LSD melts your mind, not in your hand.   
  
Does this have to do with the dragon in your pants?  
  
I'm going to be a lobster when I grow up.  
  
Wars were a pain in the ass, Kakashi had always thought. So was getting kicked in the neck and guts and, obviously, the buttocks too, but that was a different kind of soup completely.   
  
_Get up Get up get up…_  
  
Imminent death became a real possibility for Kakashi as the sun was blocked by a figure standing over him. The figure came closer, and pain speared blood red through his wrist when he tried to raise his hand.  
  
"You're…Naruto's teacher. You're early."  
  
He didn't answer. He squinted, and through the gyroscopic red vision of the Sharingan he was able to make out…the ending signatures of certain Sand spells weaving translucent to his vision around the figure. He was struck hard across the jaw; dispassionately though. "Ow. What was that for?" Blood was stuck and dribbled throughout his mask, making it uncomfortable to breathe through. Kakashi coughed up with a wet sound—only partly for show.   
  
"For being a jerk, and because we're being watched. I could kill you."  
  
"Naruto would pout." The figure was silent. Kakashi tested his wrist gently before freezing as pain shot through him again. His sight dimmed for a split-second for the second time in the last five minutes from sheer exhaustion. This could get worse.  
  
"Your people are coming."  
  
Or this could get better.  
  
"I should just kill you."  
  
Or this could get worse.   
  
"It would make things simpler…" Gaara's voice carried a hint of uncertainty for the first time in a long history of certain pain for someone else.   
  
Gaara's power had the possibility of looking as cool as telekinesis, the only factor bringing it down was the fact that instead of a _spooky_ ghost-like invisibility effect there was the perfectly visible _sand_ squishing or pounding whatever shit had happened to catch his attention.  
  
At this moment, Kakashi stared bemused at the whopping 10-foot unidentifiable monster called from the Other Place being hammered against the ground by a large tendril of sand after being summoned by...someone. Someone that Gaara might've killed already, or not. Not that Kakashi was in any position to complain.  
  
From the speed and rhythm, the sand could keep pace all day without missing a beat, the same constant indifferent strength probing the centers of the monster's endurance and bone structure. Gaara would probably be too interested in watching the guts splatter in different colors and textures to get bored.  
  
Still on his back and propped on one elbow, Kakashi shot the kid a look and decided he looked bored. He probably had done this millions of times before—the novelty probably wore off after the first 300.  
  
_Smack shlack smack squink smack_  
  
The sand swallowed him whole after his world went dark.  
  
Kakashi woke up underground because the screaming wasn't letting him sleep. Screaming had that effect on most people, if only because it was loud. Kakashi proved to be no exception.   
  
"Get it out _get it out_ get it out! It's in my _ass_ you have to _get it out!! _I can't see my eyes, what've you done with _my eyes!!_"  
  
Instinct 1: Check both of _your_ eyes. And…yep. Yep still had both of them in his skull.  
  
Kakashi got off the mat in the dank room he was in and padded into and down the corridor to the mostly-shut door the screams were coming out of and briefly wondered how badly he wanted to know what the hell was going on in there…it probably wouldn't be pretty. But someone needed help. Hm…decisions.  
  
An arm leaped out of the ground and yanked him down from the ceiling where he'd jumped instinctively to at the sudden movement; fighting until he realized the arm was made of dirty sand. It yanked him down the corridor steadily, with little reaction to his primary struggle.  
  
Thought 1: I'm in a place made of murderous sand.  
Thought 2: I don't think I could win a fight with what I have now.  
Thought 3: Someone is being tortured to death over there.  
Thought 4: I _might_ have to stay awake for this one.  
  
And, as the sand dragged him steadily along the corridor with no sign of slowing down or speeding up or even letting him stand _up_ straight, thought five hit, and Kakashi was a bit put-off that it had taken so long to arrive to the station.  
  
Thought 5: That little bastard took my mask.  
  
When Kakashi entered the room and the sand let go, the dark figure standing inside didn't even bother to turn around to look at him. Had no fear his back would be attacked either—or he was simply stupid. Or he didn't care. Kakashi repressed a sigh or irritation—yes, he was dealing with a possible enemy, but he was dealing with a kid too. Kids could be real pains in the ass—much like war.  
  
"It's you."  
  
"It's me. I'd be surprised if it were someone else instead. Forgive me if I seem rude, but can I ask what the hell is going on? I notice I'm not dead."  
  
"You're not dead yet. I saved your life."  
  
"That's a very accurate observation and thanks—I think, but why exactly is that?"  
  
"You're thinking I plan to kill you now."  
  
"No, not really," Kakashi replied even though it hadn't been a question. "You could've done that _then_ and I wouldn't be vertical now. I'm actually thinking that you mean to torture and _then_ kill me."  
  
"It crossed my mind," Gaara finally turned around to look at him, "Several times in fact. It's crossing now."  
  
"You could, but Naruto would pout. He does that quite well."  
  
"Unfortunately. But he wouldn't have to know."  
  
"Well, that's true. But you would, and believe it or not, that will make a difference."  
  
"So you say."  
  
"So what are you planning to do with me? For real?"  
  
Gaara sighed and tossed something wet onto the bench behind him, turning to face Kakashi with his arms crossed loosely.   
  
"Well, I was going to take your Sharingan eye and pop it in a jar for my father's studies if he got me my imported manga and then scalp your hair off and staple it next to your hands and feet on my wall but…as you said. Naruto would pout. So. What I _am_ going to do is ask you some questions. I _expect _to be answered honestly before escorting you back to Leaf depending on the usefulness of your answers. Is that simple enough for you to understand?"  
  
Kakashi blinked slowly, making a show of thinking things over. "You're an obnoxious brat—Do you expect me to betray my village?"  
  
"Would you?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
Gaara's eyes tinted darker with contempt, "These aren't those types of questions—your village is of no interest to me. Yes or no."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Are you going to cooperate, yes or no?" annoyance was palpable in Gaara's voice. What choice was there really?  
  
"Sure. What kind of questions?"  
  
"Why do you think you're here?"  
  
Oh. _Those_ types of questions.  
  
"The right answer isn't because you brought me here, is it? Yeah, I didn't think so. Oh…um…" Kakashi scratched his wrist as his visible eye wandered around the room, noting that it was less a medical research office and more of a…child's amateur surgery.   
  
"I guess I'm here because my parents had sex and my mother didn't choose abortion. I'm here to defend what's mind as I'm able to, to protect those I care about and to do my job." There was a slight pause after the small speech.  
  
"That's _it_?"  
  
Kakashi flinched mockingly at the harshness in the other's tone, "How much were you expecting? You weren't very specific."  
  
"That's _it_?"   
  
Kakashi slouched in response, and shoved his hands in his pockets. God, kids were always so _irritating_. "That's pathetic…so the only reason you exist is to defend?" There was considerable cold emphasis lathered on the word 'defend'.  
  
"That's the main reason. The other is to learn, to live," he glanced at the angry tattoo on the redhead's forehead. "That sort of thing. Just to be. That's enough."  
  
Gaara leaned back, eyes slicing through him like a scalpel. "That's very noble. You obviously haven't thought very hard about it, meaning you're not taking this seriously meaning you're not taking _me_ seriously," Gaara paused significantly, but his voice stayed blank, cool. "I really think you should. You'll stay here until you do." The word 'indefinitely' was visibly hanging off his lips.  
  
Kakashi's eye glazed over with disinterest.  
  
Irritating brat.  
  
Huh. If he wanted philosophy he should go grab a damn _book _but…  
  
Whatever. Fine.  
  
"I answered honestly, but you didn't mention it had to be something you _wanted_ to hear," there was a dangerous, deliberate pause. "If you want, I can answer that way too. I expect I can figure out what you want."  
  
Gaara didn't rise to it, or blink. Hadn't blinked since he had looked at him, it seemed. "That won't be necessary—I've already told you what I want. Simply answer honestly and in _full_. You left a lot out."  
  
Kakashi shifted.  
  
"I'm here because I'm not afraid of you and you think I know something you want, and you figure by threatening me you'll get it. I'm here because I understand Naruto and that's something you _need_."  
  
Kakashi paused, and after a time Gaara nodded. So far so good.  
  
"I'm here because you think I have something to offer you, something that maybe will give you the answers you couldn't get from spying on Naruto and Sasuke. And I have to tell you, that right now," Kakashi took a long, much needed breath, "I'd really rather be reading porn instead of talking to you."  
  
Gaara shrugged. "I can get you my brother's. Provided you answer well. And you will answer, pornography or no."  
  
"How long to do you intend to have me here?"  
  
Gaara shrugged carelessly again. "However long it takes. Time isn't important."  
  
Or, it wasn't to Gaara. Kakashi kept his face carefully blank. He missed his mask—he could control his face without it, but he still felt exposed without it on. It wasn't a major problem, but it was another cause for irritation. Gaara didn't wait. He probably also didn't care.  
  
"Do you ever think you don't belong?"  
  
There was an uncomfortable pause.  
  
"…Sometimes. I doubt what I'm doing, my reasons for doing it…if it was really necessary that I acted one way or the other—"  
  
"Not that," Gaara interrupted sharply. "Not what you did, your _existence. _Do you question _that_?"  
  
He knew it was a soft spot—Kakashi didn't even try to be gentle. Hell, he'd been interrupted when he'd actually _tried_…whatever. He was being stupid too, so whatever.  
  
"What if I don't? What if I've always felt that I belong exactly where I am, that I've always had every _right_ to be who and what I am no matter _what_?" he tilted his head to one side disarmingly, "What do you want me to say then?"  
  
Gaara actually hesitated. He hadn't estimated that the soft spot would be _that _soft…well. That was interesting.  
  
"Then tell me why. Honestly."  
  
Kakashi evaluated him sharply, in the room that felt like old death and sour madness.   
  
"I've never thought I don't deserve to be alive. I know I make people nervous sometimes, but I've never had the impulse to die, to disappear. It gets weird sometimes…but this is more or less my world, my village beyond the wall. Life's way too interesting to die. I _do_ belong here—I know that."  
  
That hadn't been what he'd been hoping to hear—someone who thought just a _little_ like he did, who could've at least told him what to do or tell him he wasn't as alone as he thought he was…  
  
Honesty. That was the important thing. Hanging on to reality was the important thing. No illusions, no more madness—he _needed_ this, and everything hurt a little no more no matter what so it was just one more thing really…  
  
And of _course_ it made sense—the man _was_ completely human, after all. Completely, absolutely human. He wouldn't understand. Strange for Naruto to be his student—to give his loyalty to him. Strange.  
  
"What do you like about living?"  
  
"Oh, that's _easy_…it's always interesting, and then there's the food and air to breathe which is really nice, and the feel of taking naps in the sun somewhere quiet," Gaara deliberately didn't react, "watching other people run around like mad idiots or chickens or whatever…and of course there's always girls and boobs and panties and _wonderful_ little books to make a day better."  
  
"Girls?" Other humans. People could find contentment in other people…this was _it_!  
  
"Oh sure, they make everything…softer," he said, smiling in his voice to the joke in his head only he got. "I mean, suppose I really scanty girl walks past you—what's you're reaction?"  
  
Silence. Slight confusion.  
  
"Or your thoughts? In general, I mean."  
  
Silence. Then, "Is she armed?"  
  
"Do you even _have_ a sex drive?"  
  
Kakashi already knew the answer to that—or had an idea, anyway. The Sand and Leaf had been allies for a while now, and with one thing and another, it hadn't taken long to identify what kind of monster Naruto had fought in the forest over Sakura and Sasuke. Like the kitsune, the tanuki demon had been a trickster among men with a much more bloody and cannibalistic streak and a libido to exhaust a whorehouse.   
  
Gaara had allowed one of the demon's indulgences to come through, but the other one he kept locked away completely…excepting the occasional voyeurism, and that didn't actually count for anything, really.  
  
Silence, and then, "I have a thing in my head that does not let me sleep. I have something in my blood that _makes_ me kill. I have father that thinks I was the apocalyptic weapon not worth the price I cost. I have a family that fears me and a village that wants me dead. I don't really have _time_ for a 'sex drive'," he cut the word out precisely, like it was too dirty to touch, "with my busy schedule."   
  
This was stupidity in its purest, most reviling form.  
  
"Maybe you should get around to making the time. You might like it."  
  
"_Why_?"  
  
"Who else is gonna do it for you? You wanna try something new, you gotta make the time…you've got plenty of time for your hobbies down here."  
  
Again, there was a silence, only now slightly stunned. It slowly became insulted, and then became stunned again at the sheer audaciousness. The sand stirred without Gaara even willing it—around his sandals, Kakashi felt the slight cuts he had in his feet sting as salty sand got into them and gradually made the cuts bigger and made fresh ones.  
  
"You do this for your father?" Kakashi continued politely.  
  
"No. They're my own…projects."   
  
Curtly, Gaara continued another question, "Will anyone miss you if you die?"  
  
"Oh, _someone_ will notice, but I don't know if anyone will miss me. But my skill is useful, as skill goes, and I have certain ties that will certainly react if I'm to die suddenly. I'm an useful asset—my death would most certainly be noticed."  
  
Gaara waited, slightly green eyes margarita ice cold. He wasn't going to lower himself to push at the man, and Kakashi slowly realized that this time he really meant it. Either he cooperated or Gaara would kill him, but he wasn't going to ask him twice anymore. Fine. Whatever. But that didn't mean he _liked_ it.  
  
Kids were such a pain in the ass.  
  
Or feet, rather. The bleeding was gradually getting worse, and Kakashi wondered if Gaara had any idea what he was doing to him. Probably not.  
  
"I've made a point to keep myself distanced. I don't want people to miss me if I'm not there, because that's a fairly painful experience. Pain is counter-productive to growth. However, I can't completely control what people do, so…it's possible my students would. Gai might."  
  
Honestly, Kakashi wasn't quite sure how people would react to his death—it was something he didn't think about much. There would probably be the initial shock, the necessary grief of a few weeks to a few months, and then his death would be filed away in the sheaves of paper that made up the Leaf Human Resources, and that would be it.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why do you distance yourself?"  
  
There was…something inherently _wrong_ with that question, and Kakashi took a minute to study Gaara in-depth. His expression hadn't changed, nor had his eyes—they usually didn't. Gaara wasn't one much for showing his emotions, and he returned Kakashi's stare coolly. It was entirely possible he had no idea how personal of a question he had just asked, so Kakashi gave the generic surface reason—it was still a little true, anyway.  
  
"Because it hurts. It hurts too much. I wouldn't want someone I hated to feel that, much less someone who might consider me a teammate. It simply hurts too much."  
  
"Why don't you want to be remembered?"  
  
"I…don't want to be missed. I wouldn't mind being remembered."  
  
"Do you fear for your life?"  
  
"No. That'd be a waste of time in this uniform, as well as any other one. It'd take up too much time from other things."   
  
"Do you fear death?"  
  
"No, that's something that happens to everyone no matter what. The Big Nap in the Sun and maybe if you're good you get a soda to drink when you wake up, and if you're bad you get really bad sunburn, but it's a natural road. Everyone walks it, so it can't be that bad. It's just another part of life. Kind of like retirement without worrying about income—nothing much too look forward to, but it's something all the same."  
  
Gaara hesitated. He had never quite heard death described like that. He stretched his neck to one side, and considered. Without his quite willing, the sand stopped stirring and probing Kakashi's feet—didn't move from them, but it wasn't cutting them slowly apart anymore either.  
  
"Do you intend to escape here?"  
  
"No."  
  
"When do you expect to go back to your village?"  
  
Kakashi shrugged, "A couple days, a couple weeks, a month on the outside."  
  
"Suppose I keep you longer?"  
  
He referred to him in the possessive sense—Kakashi didn't react. The kid was still bluntly fishing for reactions, seeing what he would do, and learning through his reactions.  
  
"How much longer?"  
  
"A year or two."  
  
"I suppose I would try to persuade you not to, unless you could persuade me that it was in my better interest."  
  
"You wouldn't miss your home?"  
  
"I don't get attached much." Had Gaara blinked yet? He didn't think so—Kakashi had been looking for it, pointedly, as the smell started to really irritate and accustom itself to his nose. "Ask you something?"  
  
Gaara felt the impulse to snap, to swear, to inflict injury for the presumption—it'd been clear the man was here to answer _his_ questions, not the other way around. But that was the tanuki demon thinking, so Gaara restrained the impulse. No. They were having a conversation. They were having a _normal_ civilized conversation just like normal civilized people—this was what being human was about. He was human—he was not a demon. It was merely a matter of…restraining impulses, really.  
  
Still, his voice was a little strained. Kakashi's ears caught that. "Sure."  
  
"Why did you take my mask?"  
  
Oh. Well that was an easy question. It still didn't seem that Gaara had blinked yet.  
  
"You were having difficulty breathing with the fluids soaked in it. It would have been pointless for me to rescue you just to have you suffocate on your own fluids."  
  
Kakashi nodded, "Thanks." He kept his voice neutral, polite but as tranquil as a lake. He was a kid, after all—and Gaara seemed the type of kid who'd pull the wings off a bug just to see what it would do. He had trouble telling the difference between people and bugs Kakashi had noticed—perhaps there was no difference to him. "I'd like it back though, now."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I just like to keep track of what's mine—and if I'm a guest or prisoner here," Kakashi shrugged again as he took in the room deliberately in the poor light, "I'd still hate to be a messy one, leaving my things everywhere."  
  
Gaara didn't blink, but that was no real surprise. "No."  
  
"You always do what you want?"  
  
The fact that there was a challenge in the words was the only thing that made Gaara answer verbally. "Usually, yes. Not always."  
  
Kakashi glanced up with a slight sarcastic smile on his still-bloody lips. His weapons had been taken off him along with his vest, and he wouldn't be terribly surprised if he'd been searched all over, but his wounds hadn't been cared for unless you counted the bit of sleep he was allowed. It could have always been worse—his hands could've been broken to keep from using his jutsus or his right eye taken from him while he slept.   
  
"Well that's good to know. Is there somewhere I can get cleaned up?" He didn't ask if he _could_ get cleaned up on purpose—the kid was irritating, and something was due in return. Besides, the kid seemed used to giving permission to those close to him to even _breathe_…and this was the one the Sand tried to kill every now and again? It wasn't hard to see why.  
  
"The sand will lead you. Don't wander—I can't guarantee your safety if you do."  
  
Kakashi nodded and walked out the door without a dismissal, taking educated guesses of how far underground he was and how thick the walls were and what time of day it was. He was fairly certain he was near the main village or some metropolis—there was electricity down there and the chemicals he could smell needed to be refrigerated. He couldn't hear any traffic, and the temperature was cool so it…was probably daylight.  
  
Gaara made a point of not watching him go, feeling something like irritation as well, but mostly feeling like he had failed a test.


End file.
